Courtesy: http://ilovemountains.org/
Mountaintop removal annihilates ecosystems and transforms some of the most biologically diverse, temperate forests in the world into biologically barren moonscapes.
Learn how you can get involved:
March 2012
Breathe Project, Pittsburgh, PA
Pittsburgh is taking a hard look at their city and taking steps to become more sustainable. It’s worth taking a look at their Sustainable Pittsburgh Website. Pittsburgh is also home to the Breathe Project.
Do you want your community to become more sustainable, but don’t know where to start? Contact us and we can help show you the way!
Together, we can make a difference.
Daphne
Director, GreenTowns
Courtesy: http://www.worldwildlife.org/
Support sustainability by participating in Earth Hour, Saturday, March 31st.
If you want to support green efforts in a more substantial way, get your community involved in the Earth Hour City Challenge. Inviting your mayor to participate is an easy way to show that you care about local sustainability. Get your community involved! Check out the Earth Hour City Challenge Initiative.
GreenTowns: Together, we will make a difference.
Mobilize the Earth Video Released by the Earth Day Network:
Watch it now.
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!
- Do you know a local green hero? Share their story with the GreenTowns network.
- How Green is Your Town? Find out now!
- Know of a great initiative? Share it with your community.
- Questions about sustainability? Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
Energy Food Water Transportation Land & Conservation Building Recycling Connections
WASHINGTON – League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski issued the following statement on President Obama’s stop today in Cushing, Oklahoma to discuss expediting the southern segment of the Keystone XL pipeline:
“Today’s ill-advised event in Cushing stands in stark contrast to many of President Obama’s laudatory efforts to reduce our dangerous dependence on oil. Instead of expediting the southern segment of the risky Keystone XL pipeline and promoting dirty energy, the Obama administration should continue its important work to cut unnecessary subsidies for Big Oil, increase fuel efficiency for cars and double down on clean energy. Rather than rushing efforts to transport toxic oil across America’s heartland, we should focus on putting America back in control of our energy future – creating new clean energy jobs, reducing our dependence on oil and curbing harmful global warming pollution.”
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HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!
Send a comment to the White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Please also help spread the word.
If you are on Facebook, click here to post the petition to your Wall.
If you have a Twitter account, click here to automatically tweet:
Send a message to @BarackObama lead on climate, don’t cheerlead for #KeystoneXL: http://bit.ly/GFtTIC
Take Action on World Water Day!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Stand Up for Clean Water!
Tell Congress that Clean Water is a basic human right!
- Sign Waterkeeper Alliance’s Petition Now!
- What’s your water story?
- Check out Dylan Bruno’s story
- Share your story at Facebook.com/waterkeeper
Friend of Clean Water,
When was the last time you went all day without a drink of water? Humans can’t survive one week without water. Or, when was the last time you got sick from drinking water out of your faucet? There are 1.1 billion people on earth who don’t have regular access to clean and safe drinking water.
If it took you a long time to think about the answers to either of these questions, consider yourself lucky. Water scarcity is rapidly becoming one of the defining issues of the 21st century. In fact, unless we act fast, it is only a matter of time before more wars are started over water than over oil.
Many places across the globe are running out of drinking water, and countless waterbodies are now undrinkable. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, rapid population growth and industrial pollution have made the Buriganga River undrinkable. The capital city has had to resort to groundwater to satisfy its growing thirst. Unfortunately, the groundwater levels have plummeted, jeopardizing the population’s ability to sustain itself.
Many experts predict that the capital city of Sana’a in Yemen will run out of water in six years. Unsustainable agricultural practices and rampant unlicensed extractions are the main sources of the problem. And according to the same experts, Yemen could be the world’s first country to run out of water.
Here in the United States, those who live in areas infested by irresponsible oil and gas industry operations often lack access to clean and safe drinking water. In Dimock, PA, drinking water was contaminated after fracking companies injected a poisonous brew of chemicals underground to stimulate natural gas production. Irresponsible industry practices and failed regulatory oversight have devastated this community.
In Appalachia, many communities have had their water supplies destroyed by coal mining operations. From Boone County, West Virginia to Pike County, Kentucky residents have had their water contaminated with a long list of deadly, cancer causing pollutants like arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say is unsafe to drink. As a 2009 NY Times investigative report and a 2011 video of a flaming water well by Waterkeeper Alliance Board Member Donna Lisenby illustrates, the drinking water of Appalachian families was so polluted it burned their skin when they had to bathe in it because they had no other source of water.
The western United States also faces significant water issues, particularly with respect to water quantity. The mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of California. And cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles are running out of water. It is less known that places like San Antonio and San Francisco also are facing serious water crises. The need for access to clean and abundant water will have a profound impact on the future of the United States and on many nations across the globe.
Nearly everyone has a clean water story. Some are lucky enough to live in pristine locations where they don’t give a second thought to turning on the tap or jumping in a lake, although by now they probably realize the need to protect their water resources. Others can’tgo for a swim without worrying about getting sick; turn on the tap without wondering if the water is contaminated; or catch and eat a fish without worrying whether they are jeopardizing their health or the health of their children.
I grew up in north central Pennsylvania, where I swam every summer in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes. I never thought twice about jumping into one of the waterways near my home. But my personal clean water story was profoundly impacted by a trip I made to Hann Bay village in Senegal, where the villagers wanted to start Africa’s first Waterkeeper organization. Thirty years ago, Hann Bay was one of the most pristine bays in the world and one of Senegal’s most important fisheries. Today, however, the bay suffers from raw sewage discharges from the capital city of Dakar, numerous industrial discharges, illegal dumps, and more. I witnessed children swimming and bathing in the polluted bay, less than 50 yards from a pipe coming from an oil and gas facility. I saw an uncovered canal of raw sewage meandering past village homes and through the fish market. Despite this situation, I left feeling more hope about the fight for clean water than I had ever felt before: A small group of villagers was starting a Waterkeeper organization to fight for their community’s right to clean water. They continue to inspire me in my work every day.This year, we celebrate World Water Day on March 22. As global citizens, we need to take a look in the mirror, acknowledge that simply maintaining the status quo is unconscionable, and commit to taking action that will ensure everyone’s right to clean and safe water. We aren’t quickly approaching a global water crisis; we are in a global water crisis.Everyone has a clean water story. Stand with your fellow citizens and make your voice heard: Clean water is a human right. Please take action by signing and sharing thispetition and by submitting a 30-second video of your clean water story towww.facebook.com/waterkeeper.Don’t stop just at March 22; our right to clean water is worth protecting every day.
Sincerely,
Marc Yaggi, Executive Director
Waterkeeper Alliance
courtesy: http://www.elmstreeteconomy.com/
Paul and Sarah Edwards are remarkable people and making a difference in their community. As co-directors of a non-profit organization called Let’s Live Local, they are dedicated to sustainable living in their community of Pine Mountain, California.
“Let’s Live Local is our effort to create an Elm Street Economy: one that provides jobs that last, services one can depend on … where people come first, communities organize to help themselves and home businesses are essential parts of the fabric,” says Paul.
Although Let’s Live Local has many activities and projects, three that stand out are their Beef Coop, Organic Produce Coop and Wood Pellet Coop-almost half of the community participates in the coops.
Paul also writes a blog.
Pine Mountain is the eleventh, Transition United States, community.
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!
- Learn more about the national grassroots community movement called Transition United States
- Checkout the Transition Challenge. Register your Action.
- Do you know a local green hero? Share their story with the GreenTowns network.
- How Green is Your Town? Find out now!
- Know of a great initiative? Share it with your community.
- Questions about sustainability? Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
Energy Food Water Transportation Land & Conservation Building Recycling Connections
Credit: iStockPhoto
Dear EarthTalk: American farmers are an aging population. Is anyone doing anything to make sure younger people are taking up this profession in large enough numbers to keep at least some of our food production domestic? – Beverly Smith, Milwaukee, WI
Indeed American farmers as a whole are an aging group today as young people gravitate more towards virtual realities than tilling in the soil. The National Young Farmers’ Coalition (NYFC) reports that the total number of American farmers has declined from over six million in 1910 to just over two million today, and that for each farmer under the age of 35 there are now six over 65. With the average age of U.S. farmers now at 57, one quarter (500,000) of all American farmers will retire over the next two decades. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is calling for hundreds of thousands of new farmers nationwide, but convincing young people to take up farming remains a hard sell.
NYFC would like to see action at the local, state and federal levels to help beginning farmers. “At the local level, communities can create market opportunities for farmers by starting Community Supported Agriculture groups and shopping at farmers markets, as well as protecting existing farmland through zoning and the purchase of development rights.” States can be helpful, the group adds, by offering incentives to preserve farmland and giving tax credits for farmers who sell their land to new practitioners.
But real change has to come from the top down. NYFC and others are pinning their hopes on the inclusion of the “Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Opportunity Act” in Congress’ next Farm Bill. The purpose of the proposed legislation is to invest in the next generation of American agricultural and livestock producers by enabling access to land, credit and crop insurance to help new farmers and ranchers launch or strengthen their businesses and become better stewards of their land.
“The future of family farming and ranching in America—and the viability of our nation’s food supply—depends upon removing existing obstacles to entry into farming so that more people can start to farm,” says the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, another backer of the proposed legislation. “This bill encompasses a national strategy for addressing those barriers, focusing on the issues that consistently rank as the greatest challenges for beginning producers.” Backers of the bill warn that, at a cost of just a fraction of one percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) budget, the nation can’t afford not to pass the bill given its potential long term benefits to both our food supply and trade deficit.
The good news is that interest in healthier, greener food is driving a resurgence in organic agriculture. As such, many of the new farmers cropping up to replace their retired forebears are eschewing genetically modified crops and harsh chemicals, thus improving the quality of our agricultural land base overall.
Tierney Creech of the Washington Young Farmers’ Coalition (WYFC) calls this influx of green enthusiasm an agrarian revival. “We’re not just a few people spread across the country, we’re a well organized, politically active group that can be documented,” she says. “We know who our senators and representatives are, we vote, and our friends and families vote. We need USDA and government support to succeed and we’re going to let the nation know that.”
CONTACTS: NYFC, www.youngfarmers.org; National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, www.sustainableagriculture.net; WYFC, www.washingtonyoungfarmers.org; Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Opportunity Act, thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3236: (include ending colon).
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine ( www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!
Do you know a local green hero?
Share their story with the GreenTowns network. How Green is Your Town? Questions about sustainability? Ask one of our GreenTowns Advisors:
